Apple Looking to Patent Glass Design on Upper West Side Retail Store in NYC

Apple Looking to Patent Glass Design on Upper West Side Retail Store in NYC

Apple’s retail stores are truly one of a kind, blending materials such as glass and aluminum into intricate pieces of art that dress up any neighborhood they are built in. Apple intends to protect that idea, hoping to be the only one with a one of a kind experience for its customers. The latest act of preservation by the company is to patent the 54 foot tall, 75 foot wide and 30 foot deep glass design on its Apple Upper West Side store.

Details for the patent were revealed in a patent application earlier this week, published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patent filing focuses specifically on the curved glass roof of the store, located blocks from Lincoln Center and a few avenues from Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue Store. The support structure of the store are also parts of the filing, which highlights specific sections of the outer shell that adds to the design of the store.

The Upper West Side store opened in November of 2009, and since then has become one of the five stores in Manhattan. This latest patent comes only a week after the USPTO revealed plans to patent the cylindrical design of Apple’s main store in Shanghai, China.

Apple’s obsessive focus on the simplicity of its stores plays very well into the design of the store, which the company goes to great lengths to preserve and shelter from copycats. Much of this personal belief comes from the vision of former CEO and Chairman, Steve Jobs, who believed simplicity was the key to life, and vowed to preserve Apple’s ideas.

Apple Stores around the world receive about 18,000 visitors a week per store, with each store bringing in about $12.2 million in revenue. Apple has continued to expand its retail sector, focusing on countries such as China as well as larger cities in the United States.